Last week, the Alternate Reality News Service ran an article by Doctor Freddy Wottagit-Rathbourne called "Alien Mind Suck." In that article, Dr. Rathbourne argued that Mastiff Multi-penguin Obelisk Rope Parlaying Guitars were bad for children because they caused impressionable minds to lose sight of reality, and that they were bad for adults because they...umm... they caused impressionable minds to lose sight of reality. (I may be paraphrasing a little here. Okay, I may actually be paraphrasing a lot here: I was so angry after I read the article that I erased it from my hard drive and put a lock on my computer that would redirect me to the Girls With Eyepatches Web site if I tried to access it again. I'm pretty sure that what I have written is the general gist of the thing, though.)
Allow me to rebut.
Dr. Wottagit-Rathbourne is a Xylanthian Smeghead.
I spend 14 hours a day playing World of Wowcraft, an epic fantasy Massive Multi-penguin Obelisk Rope Parlaying Guitar that allows me to slay dragons without having to get a permit from City Council. When I'm not doing that, I usually spend an equal amount of time playing Star Blap, a science fiction Massive Multi-penguin Obelisk Rope Playing Guitar that, legend has it, was based on a console game that was based on a series of movies that was based on a television show that was based on a set of action figures that was based on an earlier series of movies that was based on a series of books that was based on an all but forgotten TV series. I may have missed a couple of media, there, but you get the idea.
Aside from impaired vision, some hearing loss and a lessened appreciation for Masterpiece Theatre, I do not believe these games have done me any harm. In fact, quite the opposite: they have improved my life in a variety of ways.
One great thing about playing in a Massive Multi-penguin Online Rope Playing Guitar, for example, is that when you look for an Easter egg, you never know what you'll find. It could be the signature of the janitor who was cleaning up the office one night when he noticed a terminal a programmer had forgotten to log off of and decided to get jiggy. It could be an Aston Martin gleaming behind the shed reserved for the pig slop. It could be a seven hour documentary on the making of the game, which, admittedly, is about six and a half more hours than I would want to sit through, but the point is that you never know what you'll find when you go looking for an Easter egg in an Massive Multi-penguin Online Role Playing Guitar.
In the real world, when you hunt for an Easter egg, all you get is an Easter egg. If you're lucky.
But, it isn't just rewarding obsessive behaviour that makes Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Guitars so great. When I confront a Xyxxman Rat Captain in a battle, either I cut off its head or it cuts off my head. Simple, really. When I confront Sigmeund, a rat bastard in a boardroom, anything could happen. He could agree with my analysis of the situation, or he could disagree with it, or he could break down and cry about how his wife doesn't love him and he suspects that his children aren't really his and he knows he shouldn't be drinking, but he needs something to dull the pain, and could we please give him another chance because he really could succeed if only he felt that somebody believed in him. Or, he could laugh and walk out of the room because he has dirt on the CEO which makes him think he's bulletproof (until an investor, angry that he lost his comic book collection investing in the company, shoots him and proves otherwise). And, whatever his reaction, I cannot cut off his head. Even a little.
Games are simple. Life is an eleven dimensional Rubik's cube.
It isn't just that, though. Honour. Teamwork. How to quell a Bakkrandian uprising on Nigel Four. Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Guitars have a lot of lessons to teach us, lessons that we can apply IRR (in real reality). (Except, perhaps, for teamwork, since you can only access solo missions before level 21, and most players quit before they reach that level.)
Computer games have been blamed for everything from increasing teen pregnancy (like gamers have the time for...that!) to my Aunt Bertha's Cystitis (although she is willing to allow that the raccoons roaming freely throughout the neighbourhood may be a contributing factor). I have no idea if any of this is true. I do know that they have a lot of positive effects on gamers, so non-gamers should leave them alone already!
catch12scratch24fervor is a yeast analyst for Crisco Systems.